I had chocoladevlokken for breakfast!

Yesterday we celebrated Jaye's birthday!! 21 wooo!! Some fun and games at Menlo and then drinks and dancing at Quays... the band was great, and great time was had by all. Here's a post I wrote a couple of days ago about a day several weeks ago...

It’s only just Saturday (12:12) on the 2nd of May. I have recently survived an attack by a crippled spider, but don’t let his condition (“I think they prefer ‘visually challenged’ fiend’) fool you into thinking it was any less of a life and death struggle. Anyway, I am now tucked safely in bed and am ready to type. I’m in Franeker in the province of Fryslan in the Netherlands in the house of my aunt and uncle, Gerry and Margreet Meagher. They graciously allowed me to come and stay with them from Monday to Saturday, which means that I’m leaving later today. Sad! But before I can tell you about my week with them, I have some serious catching up to do. A few weeks ago I was in England. On the 7th of April, I woke up in Oxford. Yes, that trip. Think back now…

We left Oxford for Bath via train, a pretty short drive and a nice enough ride. We had to change trains at Didcot Station, so we waited there for a bit before our next train got there. When it did, we all separated – they assign seating, and we were spread out and in different compartments. We rode along fine for about a half hour, give or take, until we approached the Swindon stop (Thursday Next, anyone?), and I got a text from Julie, saying she had left her bag back at Didcot and so was getting off to get it. Luckily, the Swindon people were all very pleasant (“I left my bag” – “Well that wasn’t very clever, was it?”) and called back to check that her bag was still at Didcot before letting her ride back without having to buy a new ticket. In any case, the other four of us carried on to Bath. Since we had to wait for Julie, we decided to get lunch before seeing any of the sites, which we did, and then checked out some of the comedy festival that was going on. We were texting Julie throughout this time to see what was up, and she said we could start doing things, since she wasn’t desperate to see them, so we first checked out the very lovely Bath Abbey before heading into the Roman Baths themselves.

Bath is on top of a hot spring, which made it ideal for the ancient Romans to set up a spa. The water is green now from algae and full of lead from the piping, but the (rather lame, I’ll admit) self-guided audio-tour told us all about how the Romans used to splash about it the hot water having a merry old time (before, of course, the lead got to them). They have lots of artifacts from the original structure (much of it is more modern, relatively – people in Jane Austen’s time and novels used to go there and hang out in the Pump Room of the Baths), including a whole collection of coin-like things people would toss into the water with their prayers on it. The Baths were built not only as a spa but also to honor Minerva Sulis, a goddess, so these bits of metal were inscribed with prayers to her. Actually, most of them are curses, running something like, “So and so stole my cloak… let his eyes boil out next Friday” or “Whoever stole my gloves, may his hands fall off” or other similarly touching sentiments. I liked them.

At the end of the Baths is the Pump Room, where Austen-era people used to assemble to hang out, gossip, and “take the waters,” which were supposed to be good for you (this is not the lead water). You got a free glass with admission, so we went to get our glass… of warm, mineral-y, somehow heavy water. I took two sips and gave it back. The waters have been taken. We went out into the streets again to watch a very funny comedian in a tutu ride a unicycle and juggle while he had audience volunteers run around with knives and stuff. Next we walked around before settling on some grass to rest and wait for Julie, who came pretty quickly after that. Jess and I wanted to go to the Jane Austen Centre and the Royal Crescent, so we headed there, depositing the others in a small park nearby. The J.A. Centre was cool (we only went into the gift shop) because it was full of fun paraphernalia, much of it Darcy themed!! I was getting “the look” (Colin Firth fans, you understand) from all angles!! *Hoo* Ok, sorry, give me a minute. Jess got a journal for her collection, and we headed to the Royal Crescent, a famous stretch of houses. It was really cool looking, although I did not find Rupert Penry-Jones, which was something of a letdown. There is a huge lawn in front of it which connects to a park, and it was now sunny, so we stretched out for a little while. We started back down the hill to collect the others (the whole town works its way up a hill, to where the fancy people live(d)), but I suddenly remembered that the Assembly Rooms were back up there, so Jess indulged me, and we went back to see them. The Assembly Rooms were where balls, concerts, and entertainments were held back in the day, and, like the Pump Room and Royal Crescent, I’ve seen them in movies before, so it was great to be there, and know that Jane Austen was there, and all of that geeky greatness.

We finally met up with the others for some Starbucks, and we decided to see a movie because we still had a long time before our train to Heathrow and all the shops were closing already. We saw “The Boat that Rocked,” a very very funny British comedy, so it was well worth it. The train ride to Heathrow was uneventful, and we got there at about 11pm for our 6:40am flight. We found a nook near a row of rentable computers where we all sprawled out, although only Jaye slept. Throughout the night we chatted, baring our souls and all of that fun girl-sleepover stuff (we magically pulled feather pillows and silk pajamas from somewhere, and a pillow fight ensued, obviously). There was a 24 hour café near us, so around 1:15 we went to get some snacks and spent the rest of our time there in their comfy leather chairs. We all fell asleep around 3:30 but had to wake up again at 4:30 to go check in. Finally we got through, walking practically back to Ireland already just to get to our gate, and slept again on benches, but eventually lots of other people showed up, so we decided to be nice and not hog ALL the seats. Moral of the story: we all got home to Galway, albeit exhausted, and Jess got a tattoo.